Removing our Blinders
Removing our Blinders
Our actions are not nearly as considered as we think they are
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
– Richard Feynman
In examining my actions and those of others, my motivations behind them seem to fall into two broad categories, that which I fear and wish to push away, and that which I want and seek to draw to me.
In the category of fear are all things that threaten me, both physically and emotionally, and my default instinctive/emotional response in these instances is either to run from the threat or attack it.
In the category of wants, the most fundamental is all the things I need to survive, including basic survival needs (food, shelter), sex (or the desire to reproduce), and socialization (the desire to be around others).
Knowing what motivates my actions is the first step to rationally controlling them, as opposed to being a meat puppet and being controlled by them. Without this awareness, I fall victim to rationalizing my instinctual or emotionally driven actions as if I had rationally considered them beforehand.
My body reacts to its needs and threats through the inputs of my senses and my emotions. The actions I take without thinking in response to these external stimuli I rationalize after the fact to justify my actions, fooling myself into thinking that I was the director when in reality I was only the actor reading the script written by my body and emotions.
If these processes are the default “what” of my life (and most lives, it seems), the ability to interrupt the processing of emotion into action and apply rational thought beforehand instead of rationalization after, is the “how” of starting to live a virtuous life.
Recognizing but not instinctively reacting to my fears, senses, and emotions allows me the room to work on applying the virtues of justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence to my decisions, instead of taking the default path of “what desires can I satisfy at this moment”.